The first concert will be 7:00 p.m. Friday, January 18th, 2019 at Saints Peter and Paul Church, Holy Apostles Parish, 421 Covington Street in downtown Youngstown. If you take Lincoln Ave. west from 5th Ave. on the YSU Campus, it intersects Covington after about half a mile. The brown brick Art Nouveau church has an attractive steeple and will be on your right. It is a gorgeous acoustic space.

The second concert will be 7:00 p.m. Saturday, January 19th, 2019 at Jefferson Congregational Church (UCC), an attractive small red brick church built in 1835.

It is at 41 East Jefferson Street in Jefferson, Ohio. It is an intimate space with excellent acoustics. Both churches will sponsor special receptions in honor of Arboleda Solzano and Wickliffe.

The concerts will include works by Finnish composer Jean Sibelius, composer/violinist Fritz Kreisler, Mozart, Johann Sebastian Bach, Youngstown State University Professor Emeritus, Robert Rollin, and Ecuadorian folk music arranged by Galo Arboleda Solzano.

Born in Quito, Equador, Arboleda studied at the National Conservatory of Music and was a member of the Simon Bolivar Orchestra under the distinguished conductor, Gustavo Dudamel. He was featured soloist in the Bach Double Concerto with renowned violinist Shlomo Mintz.

Now a candidate for the Kent State University Masters Degree in Violin Performance, he studies with Cathy Meng Robinson, founder of the Miami String Quartet and Cleveland Orchestra Associate Concertmaster, Amy Lee. Among recent honors were serving as concertmaster of the Lakeland Civic Orchestra, solo performances of the Tchaikovsky and Sibelius Violin Concertos with the Stow Symphony, and laureate of the Kent State Concerto Competition.

Pianist Patrick Wickliffe studied with distinguished teachers at the Cleveland Institute, Oberlin Conservatory, and Kent State University. In addition to a career as pianist and accompanist, he worked in the church music field for the past ten years and currently serves as Coordinator of Music Ministry at Chagrin Falls’ Saint Joan of Arc Catholic Church.

Arboleda and Wickliffe will perform Rollin’s Rhapsody on Themes by Rachmaninoff for violin and piano. The work is based on themes from Rachmaninoff’s piano concertos. Other Rollin works will include contrapuntal settings of Puerto Rican, Welsh, and Jewish folk songs.